(By Delegate Browning)
[Introduced
March 22, 2005; referred to the
Committee on Pensions and Retirement then Finance.]

A BILL to amend and reenact §18-7A-25 of the code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to state teachers retirement
system; eligibility for retirement allowance by allowing
eligibility for retirement, with full pension rights, when a
member's age plus years of contributing service equals or
exceeds eighty.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §18-7A-25 of the code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:ARTICLE 7A. STATE TEACHERS RETIREMENT SYSTEM.
§18-7A-25. Eligibility for retirement allowance.
Any member who has attained the age of sixty years or who has
had thirty-five years of total service as a teacher in West
Virginia, regardless of age, shall beis eligible for an annuity.
No new entrant nor present member shall beis eligible for an annuity, however, if either has less than five years of service to
his or her credit.Any member who has attained the age of fifty-five years and
who has served thirty years as a teacher in West Virginia shall be
eligible for an annuity.Any member who has served at least thirty but less than
thirty-five years as a teacher in West Virginia and is less than
fifty-five years of age shall be eligible for an annuity, but the
same shall be the reduced actuarial equivalent of the annuity the
member would have received if such member were age fifty-five at
the time such annuity was applied for.Any member may retire with full pension rights, without
reduction of benefits, when the sum of the member's age plus total
years of service equals or exceeds eighty: Provided, That ten
years of the member's total years of service may be out-of-state
service or prior service or any combination thereof not exceeding
an aggregate of ten years.The request for any annuity shall be made by the member in
writing to the retirement board, but in case of retirement for
disability, the written request may be made by either the member or
the employer.
A member shall beis eligible for annuity for disability if he
or she satisfies the conditions in either subdivision (a) or
subdivision (b) and meets the conditions of subdivision (c) as follows:
(a) His or her service as a teacher in West Virginia must
total at least ten years, and service as a teacher must have been
terminated because of disability, which disability must have caused
absence from service for at least six months before his or her
application for disability annuity is approved.
(b) His or her service as a teacher in West Virginia must
total at least five years, and service as a teacher must have been
terminated because of disability, which disability must have caused
absence from service for at least six months before his or her
application for disability annuity is approved and said disability
is a direct and total result of an act of student violence directed
toward the member.
(c) An examination by a physician or physicians selected by
the retirement board must show that the member is at the time
mentally or physically incapacitated for service as a teacher, that
for suchthe service the disability is total and likely to be
permanent, and that he or she should be retired in consequence
thereofof the disability.
Continuance of the disability of the retired teacher shall be
established by medical examination, as prescribed in the preceding
paragraph, annually for five years after retirement, and thereafter
after that at such times as the retirement board may require.
Effective the first day of July, one thousand nine hundred ninety-eight, a member who has retired because of a disability may
select an option of payment under the provisions of section
twenty-eight of this article: Provided, That any option selected
under the provisions of section twenty-eight of this article shall
be in all respects the actuarial equivalent of the straight life
annuity benefit the disability retiree receives or would receive if
the options under section twenty-eight of this article were not
available and that no beneficiary or beneficiaries of the
disability annuitant may receive a greater benefit, nor receive any
benefit for a greater length of time, than suchthe beneficiary or
beneficiaries would have received had the disability retiree not
made any election of the options available under said section
twenty-eight. In determining the actuarial equivalence, the board
shall take into account the life expectancies of the member and the
beneficiary: Provided, however, That the life expectancies may at
the discretion of the board be established by an underwriting
medical director of a competent insurance company offering
annuities. Payment of the disability annuity provided in this
article shall cease immediately if the retirement board finds that
the disability of the retired teacher no longer exists, or if the
retired teacher refuses to submit to medical examination as
required by this section.

NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to provide teacher
retirement eligibility, with full pension rights, when a member's
age plus years of total service equals or exceeds eighty.

Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.